A NATION CHALLENGED: AIRLINE SAFETY; Pilots Will Ask For Permission To Carry Guns

The largest pilots' union will propose on Tuesday that cockpit crews be permitted to carry handguns to foil hijackers. The chief of the Federal Aviation Administration says that she is open to the idea but that it poses practical problems.

Officials of the 67,000-member union, the Air Line Pilots Association, said its president, Duane Woerth, would issue the proposal at a House subcommittee hearing, urging that pilots be allowed, though not required, to carry firearms.

Current F.A.A. policy generally forbids airline crews to carry guns on board. But John Mazor, a spokesman for the union, said that although the arming of pilots would be a ''radical step,'' it had overwhelming support from the membership.

''This is a reflection on how much the attack on Sept. 11 has changed everything we thought about hijackings and terrorism,'' Mr. Mazor said.

Mr. Mazor said that under the legislative proposal by the union, pilots who wanted to participate would be required to undertake extensive training and psychological testing, and be subjected to detailed background checks.

Asked about guns in the cockpit, Jane F. Garvey, the F.A.A. administrator, said: ''That's an idea that probably, two weeks ago, I would not even have considered. Now we are challenging every assumption.''

But Ms. Garvey said there were several practical problems. One is that pilots held in place by their over-the-shoulder harnesses, as required during takeoff and landing, might not be able to turn far enough around to use a gun. A second problem, she said, would be what to do if one pilot wanted a gun in the cockpit and the other did not.

The idea is a stark departure from the traditional approach to airline safety, which seeks to keep weapons off planes. That concept has been emphasized all the more since the Sept. 11 attacks. Even cockpit crews, who customarily keep their luggage with them on trips, have been subjected to close searches of carry-on baggage.

The proposal is also a quick reversal for Mr. Woerth, the union president, who told a Senate committee last Thursday that pilots could not be ''Sky King and Wyatt Earp at the same time.''

Some government aviation officials said that introducing a firearm into the cockpit, even in the hands of a seasoned pilot, could create as many risks as it eliminated.

''You'd have to have a tremendous amount of screening and training before I'd ever want to ride as a passenger on an airplane where the pilot was armed,'' said a senior crash investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board. The investigator, a former commercial airline pilot, added, ''Some of these guys are the type that'd be quick to anger without a good basis for it.''

But many pilots adamantly maintained that they could be entrusted with a weapon, particularly when they have already been entrusted with the controls of the aircraft itself.

The government already covertly places armed guards on select commercial flights. These sky marshals, experts say, carry ammunition that has a smaller charge, so the bullet travels with less force, and that is ''frangible,'' so it breaks up on impact. Such bullets will break the skin and could kill a person hit in the eye, say, but would not penetrate the skull, according to the experts.

Further, even if a bullet penetrated an aircraft's aluminum skin, most planes are designed to prevent any such hole from developing into a tear. And the hole made by even a large-caliber ordinary lead bullet would not be big enough to cause decompression; the engines repressurize the cabin faster than a hole could let air out.

Even windows will withstand bullets, experts say. ''Those windows can take the pointy end of a fire ax swung by a beefy fireman with all his might,'' said one aviation structures expert.

Seeking to rebuild a jittery public's confidence in the security of air transportation, Ms. Garvey, the F.A.A. administrator, took a commercial flight today from Washington to Kennedy International Airport in New York, and shook every hand in sight.

Ms. Garvey said that immediately after the attacks, the aviation agency told airlines and airports to check that people with badges allowing access to secure areas were not on the F.B.I. list of terror suspects. That check was done within 72 hours, she said.

In addition, the administrator said, the agency told airlines and airports to recheck that no one with any of those 750,000 badges had a criminal record. That task is almost completed, she said.

But while planes are flying again, many passengers are not. A United Express executive who manages the airline's operation at Dulles International Airport told Ms. Garvey that once flights resumed last week, some 80 percent of aircraft were flying but that they carried only about 31 percent of capacity, down by more than half. Arriving in New York, Ms. Garvey heard from Al Graser, the Port Authority's manager of operations at Kennedy, that ''movements are good, but load factors are horrendous.''

For a 1:05 p.m. flight, Ms. Garvey arrived at Dulles about 11:25 a.m. -- not quite the two hours in advance that her agency now recommends, but in plenty of time to clear security and then try to build morale at the airport, which was noticeably quieter than normal.

''Thanks for traveling,'' she said to five members of a church group from Virginia Beach on their way to New York for a flight to Helsinki and then St. Petersburg, Russia. When Ms. Garvey explained who she was, Penny Crowell, one of the group, said: ''I really feel safe. I feel better.''